Wire manufacturers typically produce electrical wire in long, continuous lengths. The wire is normally wound on spools for sale to wire suppliers or customers. It is not uncommon for wire to break during the wire manufacturing process. When this occurs, the manufacturer usually splices the wire back together and the manufacturing process continues. When the breakage of an insulated electrical wire occurs, the manufacturer usually trims back the insulation on either side of the break and welds the two ends of the conductor together. Since it is not uncommon for several breaks to occur during a given production run, there may be several splices on a particular spool of wire, especially a spool containing several thousand feet of wire. Wire splices may also occur during insulation application, and may be caused by extrusion or tape wrapping.
Twisted-pair cabling is a form of wiring in which two conductors, or two halves of a single circuit, are wound together for the purposes of canceling out electromagnetic interference from external sources. Twisting wires decreases interference since the loop area between the wires, which determines the magnetic coupling into the signal, is reduced. In balanced pair operation, the two wires typically carry equal and opposite signals, which are combined at the destination. Electromagnetic radiations of the wires mutually interfere and are canceled since they are 180 degrees out of phase.